


To Love a Beast

by gingersauce



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, s/o to my avatar the last airbender self insert days, this is my first fanfic since like 7th grade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 17:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11040474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingersauce/pseuds/gingersauce
Summary: An enigmatic silver-haired girl named Peko Pekoyama finds herself missing a crucial piece of her memory. In the time that she cannot recollect, something happened to the prince she guarded with her life. Now he is gone, without a single trace of his existence to be found. Peko sets out from her small town on a quest for answers and, in her journey, discovers a beast of a boy who says he knows the information she needs, if she'll stay with him for long enough to break his curse.





	1. Peko

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written a fic since 7th grade...  
> i'm trying to improve my writing skills so enjoy this little thing whose plot is sort of a "we'll see as we go along" kind of thing

_Once upon a time_ , in a faraway land, a young prince lived in  
shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired,  
the prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind.  
But then, one winter's night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter  
cold. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince sneered at  
the gift and turned the old woman away, but she warned him not  
to be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within.  
And when he dismissed her again, the old woman's ugliness  
melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress.  
The prince tried to apologize, but it was too late, for she had seen that there was no love in his heart, and as punishment, she  
transformed him into a hideous beast, and placed a  
powerful spell on the castle, and all who lived there.  
Ashamed of his monstrous form, the beast concealed himself  
inside his castle, with a magic mirror as his only window to  
the outside world.  
The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his twenty-first year.  
If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in  
return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would  
be broken.  
If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for  
all time.  
As the years passed, he fell into despair, and lost  
all hope,  
for  
who  
could  
ever  
learn  
to  
l o v e  
a  
**b e a s t ?**

❶

 

Peko Pekoyama opened her eyes.  
_Little town, it’s a quiet village -_  
Slowly, she arose from her stiff bed, and - as per usual - sat before the window.  
_Every day, like the one before…_  
Her meditation routine was simple. Deep breaths and erasing herself and slowly becoming one with the nature that seeped through the opening. Birds chirping and the smell of flowers - and -  
_Little town, full of little people..._  
… She’d awoken too late. The scent of bread filled the air and intermingled with the chatter emerging from houses, none of it yet discernible.  
_Waking up to say -_  
“Good morning!” “Good morning!” “Good morning!”  
People passing her house exchanged morning greetings with one another, predictably. No meditation was to occur today, it seemed. The town was already awake. 

After pajamas had been exchanged for proper clothing, Peko left her home. After all, nothing was to get done if she stayed inside all day. There were meals to be made whose ingredients hadn’t been purchased yet, and animals to feed with nothing to feed them, and perhaps the bookstore had something new on its shelves. _A simple day_ , the girl thought to herself. _And after lunch, I will train._  
Swordsmanship training, much like meditation, was a daily activity, and both had been as such for almost all sixteen years of the her life, regardless of the weather conditions or Peko’s mental or physical state. But there was comfort in such an activity, and in the fact that she was becoming stronger and more able every day. This kept her regimen intact more than anything else. Long ago, she’d had someone to train for. A prince. But there was a blank in Peko’s memory, beginning at the age of fourteen and ending with her fifteenth birthday, where her recollection of the prince ceased. It was as though he’d disappeared completely. Meditation and psychology textbooks told her that the most probable answer was that of the prince’s death and the girl’s repression of the incident, but something about that explanation refused to, for lack of a better word, click within her mind. The disappearance would, it seemed, always be a mystery. But even so, she would continue to train.  
“Good morning, Miss Pekoyama,” a gruff voice spoke, behind the wandering girl. The shopkeeper.  
“Good morning,” she replied, her tone even and polite.  
“What’ll it be today?”  
She requested her loaf of bread and, once it was received, headed to the next shop necessary for completing her errands.  
This continued for a good portion of the morning, every interaction the same. A greeting. A request. A farewell. Each time with the same tone, motions, and mannerism. However, despite her unremarkable presence among the townspeople and her average clothing (dark green dress with a silver apron, in the same fashion as everyone else’s), her appearance warranted several whispers and stares, even after a year of living in the town of La Terre.

La Terre, the nickname for La Terre Avant La Lac, was a small provincial town, which, as the name suggested, was built before a sizable lake, and as a result the chief (and only) export was fish. Small, common fish. In a way, the people and the fish weren’t much different. Both seemed to stare with big eyes and gaping mouths. The only contrast was that the fish didn’t discriminate, even if you were an immigrant Asian girl with silver hair and striking crimson eyes living alone on the outskirts of a French town.


	2. Natsumi's Friendship and Peko (Reprise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I figure out a specific schedule of when I'm going to update this, have another exposition chapter, but the next one probably won't be out for another few days after this.

❷

 

 _ _Keep your head down,__ Peko reminded herself as she made her way to the bookstore. __You will not be seen as a threat, and-__

Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a dark shadow before her feet, and looking up revealed the owner.

“Good morning,” Peko greeted the fair-haired girl with more warmth than she dared give any other. “How are you, Natsumi?”

“Peko! It doesn’t __matter__ how I am, not when you were moping around town with your head down like that.”

“It was not moping.”

“Was too.”

Peko relented, finding it pointless to argue, to which Natsumi grinned. Competitive by nature, she was always eager to win, even trivial things like playful arguments.  
To an outsider, it seemed unlikely that the two girls would even consider a friendship, when taking their conflicting personalities into account. However, they complemented each other well, and while Peko was nothing short of asocial, Natsumi always found ways to seek her out and make conversation.

There was also an uncanny similarity between the two - both were young Asian girls who had appeared unexpectedly in the primarily white-dominated town within two weeks of each other. Natsumi, however, was much more well received, with her blonde hair and her willingness to participate in the normal daily activities of the town, whereas Peko was more of an oddity. She’d never asked Natsumi where the younger girl had come from - she didn’t find it to be her place - but Peko couldn’t contain her wonder, __what if they’d come from the same place? There has to be a reason why Natsumi always felt so familiar.__

“Sooo, aren’t you gonna ask me about how my plan is going?” Olive eyes sparkled in a way that signified excitement.

“Of course,” was Peko’s reply, although she hadn’t the slightest idea which plan was being referred to.

Apparently, she’d woven a new one - to run a village girl by the name of Mahiru Koizumi (Natsumi’s self-proclaimed “mortal enemy”) out of town.

“She’s just so __rude.__ The other day, her and what’s-her-face - Satou?  - were saying, right behind me no less, that I shouldn’t be upset about my missing brother because, get this, because,” she made finger quotes in the air. “‘ _ _boys are inferior’.__ ”

“How insensitive.”

“I know! I’m so sick of acting so nice to them both, just because everyone expects us to. Not all Asians are gonna get along, it’s like we’re not even normal people to them! Ugh!”

Peko nodded along in agreement, contributing little more than her presence as someone to complain to, but the arrangement wasn’t a problem for either of them. Although she remembered very little from her days protecting the prince, she recalled similar situations happening often.

“But, I’m fine. What are you doing today?”

“I’ve just finished running errands, and I’m going to the bookstore. Training after lunch.”

“Booooring. Come work with me sometime, how are you even affording to buy this stuff?”  
“Savings.”  
“Well, when those run out, I’ve got a place for you at the florist. See you later!”

She’d left as abruptly as she’d arrived, leaving Peko to her thoughts while she walked to the bookstore.

 _ _My savings shouldn’t run out for at least another year,__ she pondered. __But do I really want to stay here for the rest of my life?__

It was a plausible idea, after all, she had nowhere else to go. Peko had no family members that she could recall, nor any friends in faraway places. In fact, her only friend was Natsumi. But even Natsumi couldn’t keep her in this horrible little town for much longer, or so it seemed.

 

Three hours later, after purchasing two new books, enjoying a moderately portioned lunch, and training for a third of the elapsed time, Peko sat on a hill and watched the sunset. This was her favorite part of the day, aside from the training. She sighed aloud and let the pressure of the day wash from her body as she bathed in the fading sunlight.

 _ _Tomorrow will be better,__ Peko Pekoyama told herself, although the passing day had not been especially bad.

 

“...Get off of me! Stop!”  
“Not until you apologize!”  
“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

The sounds of screaming from over the hill startled Peko out of her calm state, but she reassured herself that it was nothing to worry about. Perhaps it was a petty fight between village girls, over a dress or something of the like.

“ _ _Natsumi!__ ”

The name elicited an automatic response, and before she knew what she was doing, Peko was running to the aid of a girl she knew couldn’t be in a fight. It’s not that she couldn’t defend herself, of course she could, but her impulsive tendencies made it so that her opponent came out of the fight severely wounded, if they came out of the fight alive at all.

The scene was almost ridiculous, what with Natsumi, skirt ripped almost completely off, on top of a red-haired girl Peko identified as Mahiru Koizumi. Another girl, Satou, was attempting to remove Natsumi, but appeared to be struggling. Villagers peeked through windows and stood far away in the streets, pretending not to watch.  
Slowly Peko made her way to the girls and stood over them, giving off a terrifying aura.

“Natsumi,” she began. All three participants froze. “Get off of her.”

She did as told, but not without complaint, which was silenced by a glare and a mumbled, ‘we’ll talk about this later’.

The Koizumi girl muttered something to Satou but it went unheard as Peko walked Natsumi back to her home in the center of town. It was almost completely dark now, and the curious villagers had long since shut their windows again, this time for the night.

 

It took Peko fifteen or so minutes to get back to her home from there, and another to unwind before she went to bed.

__Perhaps I should have stayed the night with Natsumi, in case the girls tried anything._ _

__

When the town awoke the next morning, Natsumi did not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this kind of rushed so if it didn't format correctly, I'll just fix it tomorrow, yeah


	3. Natsumi's Friendship (Continued)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see what happens when Peko's strong character is tested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry for such a late and short update! i had final exams but now that summer's here i should be more consistent and have longer chapters...

Meditation the next morning proved difficult for Peko Pekoyama.  
_There’s discord in the air._ She thought to herself, and for the second morning in a row, her morning routine was forgone in favor of outside activity. 

People were talking.  
In the streets, through windows, and most of all, gathered in the center of the town. More specifically, around Natsumi’s house.  
_Oh no,_ was Peko’s immediate thought. _She’s gotten herself into trouble again._  
Approaching the house, however, revealed a different story. With what little image of Natsumi that could be seen through the crowd, the death of an innocent was revealed.

Of course, Peko Pekoyama had seen death before, when she had been fulfilling her duty as bodyguard to the prince. Many attempts on his life had been made, by castle staff and outsiders alike. Of course, she was the one to fend them off, making sure that his life was valued drastically above hers every time.  
But this was different. Natsumi had been someone close to her, her best friend, her only friend. Taken away by something, someone. Peko didn’t know who or what could have done such a thing. She only knew she had to get closer.  
The smashed-in skull of the girl on the ground did not faze her. Nor did the ripped off fingernails, or the bruises (oddly finger shaped) around her neck. Not even the hair and ground soaked completely in blood did it. No, it was the people. In the moments before she’d seen Natsumi’s body in its entirety, Peko hadn’t thought much other than of the body itself. But now, when the impact was registering in her brain, the annoyance of the mumbling, the chatter, the even laughter was getting to her. And suddenly, so was the sight of blood. And the presence of Satou and Mahiru whispering on the outside of the crowd.  
Peko Pekoyama dropped to her knees in an uncharacteristic display of weakness, and before she could exhibit her usual discipline she cried out,  
_“My princess!”_

The crowd immediately formed into some sort of half circle, putting their distance between both Peko and the body of Natsumi. Their whispers increased in volume and decreased in audibility as thoughts ran through her head at lightning speed.  
_My princess?_  
Why did I say that?  
Is she a part of my missing memory?  
Did the prince have a sister?  
Did  
The  
Prince  
Have  
A  
S i s t e r?

She couldn’t stop, she couldn’t form any recognizable thought after that. Her body moved on its own and in one swift motion she was on her own two feet and running as fast as she could in the direction of her house. Then she was on her horse. Then she was riding away with nothing and no one stopping her.


	4. Be Our Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peko runs away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 11:45 and i'm almost late to posting and i am on the verge of an episode as i type this but i gotta post the fic.. anyways chapters will be longer following this and aaa i'm so excited to write what's coming next

❹

The aimlessness of the journey into the forest was something Peko was unaccustomed to. In all of her years of living she’d always had a direction. It was how she’d been hardwired. Tools never had enjoyments, after all. Tools had purposes and endless jobs to fulfill.  
Looking back on it, the beginning of her life in La Terre had been challenging for this very reason. Before Peko had created a schedule for herself (meditation, breakfast, errands, lunch, training, dinner, sleep) she’d wandered about the town with a frantic demeanor. Everyone had been in her way as she tried to find something to do with herself, and because of this she became even more of an oddity than she’d already been.   
It had not been a completely negative part of her life, however. Those of similar social status tended to congregate, and although she’d been of higher regards about the town, Natsumi had approached Peko with willingness and the intent to become friends.  
 _Natsumi…_  
Peko Pekoyama wanted nothing more than to forget the sight of her only friend’s battered, broken body, but the image had been seared into her mind. The memory, she knew, would not fade for the rest of her life. Alongside that, she also had her own voice echoing throughout her skull, screaming, My princess! My princess! My princess! unrelentingly, without indication of meaning.   
Consciousness was useless, Peko concluded, at least for her. The memories she needed most had vanished and the ones she was ready to forget weren’t going anywhere, and besides, one didn’t need to be self-aware to carry out orders the way she was meant to.   
Without any warning,the white horse beneath her came to a halt, nearly throwing Peko to the ground. She turned her attention towards the path before her and saw that it came to a fork, the main trail separating into two smaller, equal parts. Both directions led into darkness, the trees so dense above her that, had it been night there would have been no difference.  
Cautiously, she headed to the left, acting on nothing but impulse. The darkness thickened with every cautious step of her horse.   
Then suddenly,  
 _Snow?_

 

The transition was sudden. Trees broke away into tall rosebushes and snow fell lazily from the sky.  
 _How is this possible?_ Peko wondered in bewilderment. _It’s the summertime._  
The only explanation was that she was suffering from some type of breakdown from the traumatic events of earlier. This couldn’t be happening… Could it?  
Peko surveyed her options - keep going forward and hope that the snow goes away? Go back to the town? - and decided to proceed in the direction of the rose garden.   
After a few minutes of slow movement through the roses, she took a moment to survey her surroundings. The bushes were neat, as if someone had been caring for them, and were coated in a thin layer of snow. As she moved further ahead, the bushes got shorter and eventually broke away completely, revealing a  
 _Castle?_


	5. Be Our Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peko meets someone new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i promised a longer chapter so here we are i guess  
> i literally sat down at half hour ago with a bag of cheetos(tm) ready to finish this... i keep posting chapters when nobody will see 'em

❺

The castle was monstrous, and Peko hadn’t the faintest idea of how those rosebushes obscured it from view so completely. She didn’t mean to be foolish, but really, it seemed almost magical. Not that there was any such thing as magic, of course.  
However, she was beginning to doubt that. Without magic, she reasoned, how could this enormous castle in the middle of the woods go unnoticed? It was absurd.  
Her horse trotted along slowly, almost cautiously, more than likely feeling as on edge as Peko herself, although there was no reason to be. This castle was surely uninhibited, judging by the state of it. Ivy climbed up the walls and forced itself into windows. What surely once must have been a line of gargoyles overlooking the garden had turned to indeterminate gray lumps of rock. The walls were cracked, the wooden stables had been weathered, and the door was… Open?  
Peko Pekoyama blinked once, twice, and looked again. The door remained open.  
_Strange…_ She thought to herself. _I should turn away now. There is no reason to be here anyways._  
She pulled the reins and instructed her horse to turn, but suddenly the animal had frozen. She pulled the reins harder.  
“Come on, we-”  
Peko stopped. A shadow had appeared in the doorway, tall and slender and shaped as though it belonged to a human. There was no way to tell the emotions of a person just by their shadow, but she could only imagine that this person was at the very least disgruntled considering she was trespassing on their land.  
_I’d best go and explain myself,_ she decided, and instructed the motionless horse to move forward once again, only to find that he would not comply. She gave the command once more, and when it yielded the same results, Peko dismounted and set forward on foot.  
The shadow had not moved from its place in front of the door, nor did the owner of the shadow become apparent as she moved closer.  
Until her foot hit the first step. The door was immediately slammed shut with a noise that made even Peko jump a bit. This did not stop her.  
Muddy black shoes hit cement three cement steps, and she found herself before the door. She allowed herself a moment’s pause to dust the accumulating white snow off of her shoulders and glasses before knocking firmly on the door.  
No answer.  
Another knock.  
Once again, no answer.  
Peko slowly turned, admitting defeat and hoping that she wouldn’t have to defend herself from any sort of attacker in her current state. Again her feet met the steps and she began to notice a dark shadow falling over them-  
“Wait, dammit!” A voice rang out, not too far behind to which Peko’s entire body turned.  
“Yes?” She asked, her tone even. The speaker was still hidden behind the door, but she could at least hear from the interjection that they were not happy. She again moved closer to the door. “I apologize for intruding on your property.”  
The speaker was quiet for a second, then, in an almost inaudible voice, mumbled, “Don’t… Don’t worry about it. Come inside.”  
“And my horse?”  
“The stable. To the left.”  
_What a rude host._  
The animal was led to the stable, and the door shut, while the shadow of the speaker lingered in the doorway, presumably watching.  
When she finished, she made her way over to the door for a third time and placed her hand on it with intent to open it farther.  
“I’m just warning you,” the voice spoke. “I probably won’t look like what you expect me to.”

“Thank you for the warning,” she replied, wondering what the significance of the statement could be.  
The door opened with a long and drawn out creak that echoed through the castle. Slowly, the speaker was revealed to Peko.  
First and foremost, the presence of slender black horns on his head startled her quite a bit, but looking down revealed another strange quality, the prominent scales sprinkled like freckles across his cheeks and on his hands, which gripped the door. He wore a slightly grayed button-up shirt beneath a frayed navy suit jacket, and black pants.  
“Enough with the staring,” he snapped, reaching up to smooth his short blonde hair. There was something about the way he did it that seemed to Peko as though she anticipated how he was going to do it, almost like his movements were familiar to the girl. She shook her head.  
“Thank you for inviting me inside,”  
“Yeah. No problem.”  
The boy seemed coarse and ill-tempered. This was apparent in everything he did so far, including his speech and the way he walked down the hall. Hesitantly, Peko followed, unsure of whether that was his intention. She found herself several paces behind him, to which he responded for her to catch up.  
Walking next to him made her aware of the height difference between the two, in a way that she could see the top of his head. The blonde hair looked so soft…  
_Just…_  
_One…_  
_T o u c h-_  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”  
“Oh, there was-”  
“Shut up, I don’t want to hear it. I know that most people don’t have horns, that doesn’t give you an excuse to touch ‘em!”  
Peko froze, unsure of how to respond to his outburst. Under normal circumstances she would have brushed it off. This time, however, seeing as she was shaken up as it was and unused to being yelled at by a stranger, or something, she began to stammer.  
“I…I…”  
The reaction seemed to stir up a softening emotion, because the horned boy’s scowl faded, replaced by a look of almost-sympathy.  
“Hey.. Pe, uh, I didn’t mean to yell. Sorry.”  
“Don’t be concerned,” she replied, then added in a manner uncharacteristic of her usually short sentences, “I’ve had a bit of a long day.”  
“Oh,” he began, carefully. “Maybe you should tell me about it over dinner.”


	6. Be Our Guest cont.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an invitation is offered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS two weeks late but i don't think anyone reads this anymore so i guess nobody's complaining. anyways it's short again here you go

❻

 

Peko had never been invited to such a formal dinner before, at least, to the best of her memory. She’d always eaten before the prince and then waited behind his chair while he ate, or so she could recall, and during her stay in the village she’d always eaten alone for dinner unless Natsumi tagged along. But that was hardly anything like this.

“Is there anything I should do before we eat?” She inquired.

“Nah. We’re not eating anything fancy anyways,” he replied, leading her into the dining room. What looked like a single large pot of some sort of soup sat nearest the head of the table. The blonde-haired boy lazily thrust his body down on the chair and grabbed a fork off a nearby cart, then stopped to meet Peko’s look of confusion.

“Oh, uhh... Sorry.” He immediately stood up and turned to the cart, rummaging through it for what she assumed to be a spoon. He whirled back around once he’d found what he’d been looking for - a fork and a napkin - and pulled out a chair to his left.

“Pe… Please sit down.”  
Peko obliged and sat curtly, only to be met with the napkin tied around her neck by delicate scaled hands. A quiet ‘thank you’ was her reply to this, and he took it as an invitation to sit down next to her.

“Sorry, it’s not much,” admitted her counterpart, and removed the top to reveal 39 cent Maruchan brand ramen noodles sitting inside.

Go figure.

Peko, who’d eaten nothing but farm fresh foods since her arrival in La Terre, tried not to regard the meal with disdain. He hadn’t been expecting company, after all, and she’d probably interrupted his dinner with her insolence.

“Thank you for the meal.” They spoke in unison. It echoed through the dining hall and bounced around in Peko’s brain for a bit.

___Why would he say that? I only do such a thing because of my upbringing. Could he, perhaps, have had similar experiences in his childhood? Could he-__ _

“So, uh, what’s… What’s your name?” The question shook her out of her thoughts.

“My name is Peko Pekoyama.”

This elicited some sort of reaction from him, although when it came to reading emotions Peko had very little skill.

“You can call me Fuyu,” the boy, Fuyu, responded.

“It is very nice to meet you.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your day?”

 

The silver-haired girl hesitantly began to describe the events of the day. She wasn’t one to mince words or waste her time giving unnecessary details, but in this instance she did so if only to spare herself from talking about the horrific incident that had occurred.

“I saw a crowd of people outside,” her tone was weaker than she herself had ever heard it, “when I went to find out what was happening, I saw…”

“Saw what?” Fuyu asked impatiently.

“My best friend, head smashed in. On the ground.” Peko concluded. Fuyu looked troubled. “I’m sorry. You, uh, probably don’t want to go back there, do you, Peko?”

She shook her head. “It would be preferable if I didn’t.”

“Well, you could always stay here.”

 

* * *

 

 

His invitation had graciously been accepted, but once Peko had settled down for the night, in an enormous room right next to his, the instinctual paranoid thoughts kicked in.

___Who is this ‘Fuyu’? Why is he in a castle, if he doesn’t look or talk like a royal? Was he born a beast or was he cursed? Is he going to kill me? Does he lure people here to kill them? What if -__ _

__

She was asleep before her brain could finish the last sentence.

**Author's Note:**

> the town's name translates to, "the earth before the lake"


End file.
